America's only national tour of the hugely successful musical Cats - the 25th-anniversary edition - lands on its feet at the Hippodrome Theatre tonight for a run of eight performances. Though The Phantom of the Opera (also by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber) broke its record just last night to become the longest-running production in Broadway history, there's no denying the lion-sized paw prints Cats has left on the cultural landscape. The story of a group of felines who congregate in a junkyard to choose one cat to be born again, Cats was unique, among other things, for its gigantic props, its use of song and dance in every scene, its less-than-labyrinthine plot, its expansion of the play into the aisles and its status as progenitor of such "megamusicals" as Les Miserables, Miss Saigon and The Lion King.

The Maryland Film Festival opens tonight with its gala presentation of 10 Under 20, an adventurous collection of animated and live-action shorts, with all their makers in attendance. But the opening feature is Citizen Kane (tomorrow at 10 a.m., at the Charles). It's both an apt opening film for a young festival like Maryland's, and the perfect follow-up to 10 Under 20. For Citizen Kane has always been the quintessential young man's movie. Orson Welles made his first and best mark in film as a 25-year-old boy wonder with this elegant and turbulent 1941 expose of a magnate who resembled William Randolph Hearst.

Nine-year-old Katya McKenzie tapped a plastic stick with fluorescent, dangling feathers against the entrance to a red, L-shaped tunnel. "In here, Boris. In here," she coaxed her prizewinning Russian Siberian cat. Boris had already jumped through plenty of hoops - also weaved around polls, climbed ramps and barreled through straight tunnels - in training for this weekend's agility contest at the NovaCats Cat Club's regional competition in Timonium. But Boris didn't like this tunnel, likely because he couldn't see the end of it. He abruptly stopped, sat on his fluffy tail and watched Katya (that's cot-ya, not cat-ya)

The cat's meowThe Cat Collectors '98 Convention of cat-memorabilia collectors invites cat lovers to gather tomorrow through Sunday in Herndon, Va., to share collections, exchange cat photos and stories, learn more about cat collectibles and buy things for their collections.Activities for this year's gathering include a flea market, book sale, merchandise vendors, artwork sale, a speaker and exhibit on Socks, the White House Cat, and an exhibit of cat dolls.The convention, at the Hyatt Dulles Hotel, 2300 Dulles Corner Blvd.

My cat Elvis was king, or maybe she was queen, of our household. She had a great sense of cat humor and a playful personality, and she offered endless unconditional love. She knocked things over, sneaked out of the house, ate our food before we sat down and batted things under the furniture. A few years ago, Elvis bought the farm. Our other old-timer cat, Angel, died the next week. After four years, we still mourn the loss of our pets. Our kids asked when the cats would come back. We told them there was no returning from cat heaven.

LOS ANGELES -- Halle Berry is the cat's meow these days. Or, at least, she is with Catwoman. "I have watched my cat, and I listen to how he purrs and plays and walks and when he gets angry," Berry says. "And there's a sound that he makes that I've tried to use, too." Her cat is one of the 60 homeless cats used in a scene in her last film, Gothika, with Robert Downey Jr. In that film, she played a successful psychiatrist who is accused of brutally killing her husband. Berry's mother worked as a psychiatric nurse, and she helped her with the role.

The cat's meowJoin the Black-Eyed Susan Cat Club as it sponsors its All-Breed Championship and Household Pet Cat Show this weekend in Annapolis. Fancy felines, including the Maine Coon cat and the Manx, will be on display, along with their more common cousins. The cats will be divided into four categories and rated by eight licensed judges. After working their way from the American Shorthair to the Cornish Rex, visitors can buy gifts for their cats and themselves from various vendors. Kittens also will be for sale.

"Cats" opened on Broadway more than a decade ago with th boastful slogan, "Now and Forever." And indeed, not only is it currently playing its fourth Baltimore engagement, but it's still running in New York, where the greatest proof of its legendary status may be the fact that three of the season's new hits -- "Angels in America," "The Sisters Rosensweig" and "Jeffrey" -- include references to it.So how is the legend holding up on the road (where, incidentally, it has set the record as the longest continuously touring musical in the history of American theater)

Few Hollywood directors have a better grounding in, not to mention appreciation for, Hollywood history than Peter Bogdanovich. Which, of course, makes him a natural for The Cat's Meow, a speculation on what really happened when producer-director Thomas Ince died in 1924, shortly after taking a trip on newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst's yacht. The official story was that he died of heart failure after falling ill during the trip, but even then, few people were buying it. Popular legend -- as well as Bogdanovich's film -- maintains that Ince was shot onboard, possibly by an enraged Hearst aiming at Charlie Chaplin, whom he suspected of carrying on an affair with his mistress, actress Marion Davies.

LOS ANGELES -- Halle Berry is the cat's meow these days. Or, at least, she is with Catwoman. "I have watched my cat, and I listen to how he purrs and plays and walks and when he gets angry," Berry says. "And there's a sound that he makes that I've tried to use, too." Her cat is one of the 60 homeless cats used in a scene in her last film, Gothika, with Robert Downey Jr. In that film, she played a successful psychiatrist who is accused of brutally killing her husband. Berry's mother worked as a psychiatric nurse, and she helped her with the role.

Few Hollywood directors have a better grounding in, not to mention appreciation for, Hollywood history than Peter Bogdanovich. Which, of course, makes him a natural for The Cat's Meow, a speculation on what really happened when producer-director Thomas Ince died in 1924, shortly after taking a trip on newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst's yacht. The official story was that he died of heart failure after falling ill during the trip, but even then, few people were buying it. Popular legend -- as well as Bogdanovich's film -- maintains that Ince was shot onboard, possibly by an enraged Hearst aiming at Charlie Chaplin, whom he suspected of carrying on an affair with his mistress, actress Marion Davies.

In The Cat's Meow, Edward Herrmann's William Randolph Hearst tries to play the fun-loving host of a yacht party for the likes of Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard). But from the start he moves with the stricken and bewildered heaviness of a wounded elephant. Herrmann and his director, Peter Bogdanovich, and his screenwriter, Steven Peros, have transformed the tale of Hearst's most disastrous pleasure cruise into a masochistic, histrionic showcase on the order of The Blue Angel. Hermann's Hearst is an emotionally needy monarch in a jester's hat who turns menacing when he learns that his beloved mistress Marion Davies (Kirsten Dunst)

The Maryland Film Festival opens tonight with its gala presentation of 10 Under 20, an adventurous collection of animated and live-action shorts, with all their makers in attendance. But the opening feature is Citizen Kane (tomorrow at 10 a.m., at the Charles). It's both an apt opening film for a young festival like Maryland's, and the perfect follow-up to 10 Under 20. For Citizen Kane has always been the quintessential young man's movie. Orson Welles made his first and best mark in film as a 25-year-old boy wonder with this elegant and turbulent 1941 expose of a magnate who resembled William Randolph Hearst.

My cat Elvis was king, or maybe she was queen, of our household. She had a great sense of cat humor and a playful personality, and she offered endless unconditional love. She knocked things over, sneaked out of the house, ate our food before we sat down and batted things under the furniture. A few years ago, Elvis bought the farm. Our other old-timer cat, Angel, died the next week. After four years, we still mourn the loss of our pets. Our kids asked when the cats would come back. We told them there was no returning from cat heaven.

Nine-year-old Katya McKenzie tapped a plastic stick with fluorescent, dangling feathers against the entrance to a red, L-shaped tunnel. "In here, Boris. In here," she coaxed her prizewinning Russian Siberian cat. Boris had already jumped through plenty of hoops - also weaved around polls, climbed ramps and barreled through straight tunnels - in training for this weekend's agility contest at the NovaCats Cat Club's regional competition in Timonium. But Boris didn't like this tunnel, likely because he couldn't see the end of it. He abruptly stopped, sat on his fluffy tail and watched Katya (that's cot-ya, not cat-ya)

America's only national tour of the hugely successful musical Cats - the 25th-anniversary edition - lands on its feet at the Hippodrome Theatre tonight for a run of eight performances. Though The Phantom of the Opera (also by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber) broke its record just last night to become the longest-running production in Broadway history, there's no denying the lion-sized paw prints Cats has left on the cultural landscape. The story of a group of felines who congregate in a junkyard to choose one cat to be born again, Cats was unique, among other things, for its gigantic props, its use of song and dance in every scene, its less-than-labyrinthine plot, its expansion of the play into the aisles and its status as progenitor of such "megamusicals" as Les Miserables, Miss Saigon and The Lion King.

The cat's meowThe Cat Collectors '98 Convention of cat-memorabilia collectors invites cat lovers to gather tomorrow through Sunday in Herndon, Va., to share collections, exchange cat photos and stories, learn more about cat collectibles and buy things for their collections.Activities for this year's gathering include a flea market, book sale, merchandise vendors, artwork sale, a speaker and exhibit on Socks, the White House Cat, and an exhibit of cat dolls.The convention, at the Hyatt Dulles Hotel, 2300 Dulles Corner Blvd.

The cat's meowJoin the Black-Eyed Susan Cat Club as it sponsors its All-Breed Championship and Household Pet Cat Show this weekend in Annapolis. Fancy felines, including the Maine Coon cat and the Manx, will be on display, along with their more common cousins. The cats will be divided into four categories and rated by eight licensed judges. After working their way from the American Shorthair to the Cornish Rex, visitors can buy gifts for their cats and themselves from various vendors. Kittens also will be for sale.